


Run Lenya Run

by AwariaSuit



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Distortion, Brief Violence, Car Accidents, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, Gun Violence, M/M, Perevozchenko's Motorcycle Saves The Day, Pre-Relationship, Run Lola Run Pastiche, Running, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-30 19:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwariaSuit/pseuds/AwariaSuit
Summary: Senior Reactor Control Engineer Leonid Toptunov gets a phone call from the future. And three chances to make everythingright.





	1. Call In The Day Shift

**Author's Note:**

> _Chernobyl HBO_ meets _Lola Rennt_ (_Run Lola Run_). 
> 
> Don't know this movie? If you don't mind spoilers, check the [movie synopsis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_Lola_Run). 
> 
> The [trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz2-D4lY2qg) gives a fairly good overview of the overall plot.
> 
> Finally, if you'd like to get a _real_ feel for it, check out this 3,5 minute [video slice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppeZQ8inevE) of the movie, along with the awesome music.

_Saturday, 26 April, 1986_  
_Control Room Number Four_  
_Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant_

  


— _Do we still have a phone line to the outside?_

Akimov's stare is completely blank. He cannot get over what happened to Proskuryakov. _His face..._ The question doesn't even register until Dyatlov prompts him by his name, in that soft yet menacing tone of voice. Even then, the best he can do is grunt in response.

— Call in the day shift, Comrade Akimov.

With that, Dyatlov leaves the control room. Headed to the Administration Building, like he said he would. Toptunov is gone, having taken Proskuryakov to the infirmary. Stolyarchuk is out checking the pumps. And who knows where the hell Kirschenbaum is.

In the emptied, darkened control room, Akimov picks up the phone. He isn't even sure what number his fingers dial. 

It's the one he knows by heart.

  


* * *

  


— Hewwo?

_Hewwo?_ There is a gulp, and sounds of someone chewing furiously and swallowing. — Sorry, hello. You caught me at breakfast. Or dinner, rather. — A familiar voice babbles on the other end.

_Leonid_. But how? Did he dial the infirmary?

Wait a minute. _Dinner?_

— L-Leonid?

— Sasha?

Akimov looks around the control room, as if expecting Toptunov to re-enter at any moment. 

— Sasha, is that you?

— Are you in the infirmary?

— Infirmary? No, I'm at home. Told you, was just having dinner. You alright, Sasha?

Akimov doesn't understand. He looks up at the ceiling where the light continues to flicker. He looks down at the dust on his white canvas shoes. 

_We did everything right_. And none of this, none of it makes any sense. 

— Help me, Lenya. I don't... I don't know what to do. We screwed up, badly.

— Who did? Sasha, tell me what happened.

When Sasha continues to breathe, heavily, without saying a word, he repeats, a little more softly. — Just tell me what happened, okay?

— The, uh, the safety test. W-we... the power dropped too low, way too low. And then, there was the power surge. The power reading went beyond- 

— Power reading? What are you talking about - Sasha, where are you?

Akimov takes a deep breath.

— I am in the control room.

— You're at work? But, why? — The confusion in his voice is palpable. — Our shift doesn't start for another ten hours.

_Ten hours_.__

— Leonid. Listen to me. I don't know how or why... but it doesn't even matter. All you need to know is... you have to stop the test. 

— What test?

— The turbine rundown. Don't let them run it. Bryukhanov and-and Fomin, you have to tell them. Promise me, okay?

— Alright, I promise.

— I'm begging you, Leonid. You have to stop them from running the test.

— I _promise_, Sasha. But tell me, why?

Akimov opens his mouth. Closes it. Licks his lips, still tasting metal.

— We ran the test. The power output was low, I suspect the core was poisoned. And then, the power surged. I — he struggles to breathe in and out. — I pressed AZ-5, and then it exploded.

— What exploded?

— The core. The core exploded.

— But that's imp-

Akimov breathes in sharply. 

— Leonid, walk to your balcony. And tell me what you see.

There's a muffled sound of a crash when the phone falls off the side table. — It won't... it won't quite reach. But I can see through the window.

— Tell me what you see.

Akimov closes his eyes. The control room disappears.

— The sky is a bit cloudy... and I can see the block opposite mine. And beyond that, the forest. And the plant... far in the distance. And, you're saying you're there right now, Sasha?

— Yes. But it's nighttime. Almost two in the morning.

— I don't understand.

— Me neither. But you _have_ to stop the test. — His voice begins to waver. — Do you follow?

— Yes. — Toptunov replies promptly, even though he doesn't follow at all.

— Promise me.

— I promise. — He says for the third time.

_Click._

Toptunov lets go of the receiver. The taut cable snaps back, like a slingshot. And somehow, impossibly, it lands on the cradle. His eyes widen.

But this is a lot to take in. A safety test. An explosion. The core? Bryukhanov and Fomin. Turbine rundown. Sasha. Calling him. From where? Or when? 

_This is too much._ Toptunov puts his hands to his temples and digs his fingers into his hair. The room begins to spin. 

In the corner, his black and white television quietly makes itself known. A re-transmission from world's first Domino Day. Toptunov had been watching the participants set up their dominoes in elaborate configurations, their painstaking attention to detail mesmerised him so much that he often forgot to chew throughout his meal. Now he's missing the payoff, as the dominoes begin to fall.

_And what now?_

Test. Sasha. Explosion. 

_Right._

He promised Sasha he would stop it. _Bryukhanov and Fomin_. He grabs his jacket and runs for the door.


	2. Running One

Already past the door, Toptunov remembers that the elevator has been broken for the third day in a row, so he veers to the stairwell instead. Right around the first floor landing, he spots a young bloke with a dog. 

_One extremely mean-looking mongrel._

Part-Husky, part Samoyed. It growls at him as he swerves by, racing down to the ground floor.

Past the rows of mailboxes in lobby and out of his building, Toptunov sprints across the grass to Sportyvnaya Street, toward the intersection. He turns the corner around Jubilee home services store, onto Lazarev Street, nearly colliding with a group of people.

They scatter around him, as he takes a pause. Oksana pulls back the baby carriage, giving him a rather nasty look. Likewise, Mikhail hoists his son up protectively. Toptunov slips past them, as Vasily Ignatenko yells out — Hey! 

— _Watch where you're going!_

Toptunov runs across the street and continues down Lazarev.

He glances to the left, where the giant devil's wheel and its bright yellow cars tower over the rest of the fun fair constructed for First of May festivities. When he reaches the post office, he turns left and cuts across the main square in front of the Palace of Culture. 

One night in the winter, before heading to work, he and Kirschenbaum teamed up for a snowball fight, in the wide tree-lined lawn in front of _Energetik_. Their opponents, Proskuryakov and Kudryavtsev certainly tried their best, but the trainees were no match for dynamic duo of senior reactor and turbine control engineers.

— Hey mister, wanna borrow a bike? — Two small children on bikes weave around him, racing him and each other, until their parents call out to give it a rest.

Toptunov runs across the lanes of Kurchatov Street, barely checking for traffic. Now he is headed south-east along the wide-laned Lenina Prospekt.

He narrowly misses a car pulling out of a housing complex, but manages to lurch forward before the front bumper can swipe him. Dyatlov lets off the brake, slowly, still looking to his left at the madman that just ran past him. _Who did I just see? Was it that moron, Toptunov?_ Rail-thin, milk on his chin, and always a nervous mess around him, Dyatlov begins to recall Toptunov's qualifications exam at which he was one of the examiners, and-

The sound of crushed metal and glass breaks his reverie, as he realizes that his car has rolled right into the side of a bus. 

_Fuck. I'm going to be late._

Meanwhile, Toptunov has reached the end of Lenina Prospekt. But the bus station is empty. He looks around, as if expecting the bus to come from any direction. But there's no one around.

He rests with his head down between his shoulders, hands propped against his knees, panting heavily. It's three kilometers to the plant, still. He gives one more look back at Lenina Prospekt, but no bus is coming his way. 

Time to continue. He turns left and follows the road until he comes up to the warehouse. There he makes a right-turn. Railroad tracks cross his path several times, first those of the Lvov-Chernigov line, then two track forks that lead to the plant. He turns left yet again, and finally the massive building housing Reactors Four and Three comes into view.

But there's still quite a distance to cover. The main administrative building, where Bryukhanov and Fomin are most likely to be, is located at the opposite corner of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant complex.

Rather than continuing along the main road leading to the reservoir, past the fire station, Toptunov decides to enter the plant complex. At the checkpoint, he fishes out his identification card and hands it to the guard.

— Well, well. If it isn't engineer... Toptunov. — The guard glances up at him — Late for work?

— N-no. — He is trying to contain his heavy breathing.

— Why the rush? 

— Alright, yes. — He lies, exasperated — I'm late for work.

The guard smirks and hands him back the identification card, and lifts the guard rail so that he can pass. Toptunov immediately breaks into a sprint, headed toward the long line of connected buildings housing the reactors.

The road veers slightly left, and he's running toward the great red and white ventilation chimney for Reactors Three and Four. Then it turns all the way left, and he's running along the block housing Reactor Two, another combined ventilation chimney, and Reactor One.

He zigzags left and right, and finally, he is standing in front of the Main Administration Building. Exhausted and short of breath, he lumbers toward the entrance, and stumbles inside.

— Comrade director is in a meeting. — Bryukhanov's secretary informs him without looking up.

— This is of utmost importance — he tells her, still taking deep breaths. She looks up, surprised at his disheveled appearance.

— You can't-

But Toptunov is already pushing past, and opening the door to Bryukhanov's office.

— I wonder what's taking Dyatlov so long? — Fomin is asking, drumming his fingers on the arm rest. The other chair is empty.

Bryukhanov is hunched over his desk, in the process of lighting a cigarette. — Who the hell are you?

— Toptunov. Leonid Fedorovich. I'm the senior reactor control engineer in Four.

Bryukhanov and Fomin exchange glances. — What are you doing here?

— I-I've come to warn you... — _No, that's not right_. — The test. Turbine rundown.

— What about it?

— You can't perform the test. It's dangerous. It will — he quickly corrects himself — it can lead to a power surge.

— Fomin? — Bryukhanov inhales.

— That's nonsense. We performed the test on the other three — 

— Please, you've got to listen to me. There's a very real chance that this safety test will result in... in an explosion.

— Of what?

— The reactor core.

— RBMK reactors don't explode! — Bryukhanov and Fomin exclaim in unison.

— Where are you getting this... disinformation from? 

— What disinformation? — Dyatlov enters the room. — My apologies, comrades, I was delayed by vehicular trouble — he stops when he notices Toptunov, whose face is twisted with despair. — You!

— Please, listen to me, all of you. — Toptunov casts a wild look about the room. — It will explode, I swear it. Cancel this safety test. I _beg_ you.

— He's delusional. — Dyatlov concludes. — Take him to the infirmary.

Bryukhanov motions to Fomin, who shuffles out of the room. Moments later, two guards enter and flank Toptunov on both sides. No, _no_. He tries to slip past them, but they each grab one of his arms. 

— Please, please. — Toptunov's voice wavers, his desperation all too clear. — Cancel the test, cancel it!

A doctor finally arrives. Toptunov keeps fighting the men holding him in restraint. The doctor, wearing gloves, takes out a small square napkin from a pouch, and approaches him from behind. A few seconds of breathing in chloroform and Toptunov's head falls back and limbs go limp. It's over.

Once Toptunov's listless form is carried out of the office, Brykhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov resume their conference about the safety test.

— I will _personally_ supervise the test.

— Is there something else? — Bryukhanov asks, when Dyatlov doesn't move from his chair.

— That was the night shift SIUR. We'll need to — 

— Fomin. — Bryukhanov barks, interrupting Dyatlov. — Inform the fourth shift SIUR that he'll be pulling a double shift. 

— Yes, comrade director.

  


* * *

  


When Toptunov comes to, it is already night time. In the dim light of the infirmary, he checks his watch. Almost twenty past one in the morning. He sits up.

_Maybe there's still time._

He tiptoes out of the room, and slips down the empty corridor. Taking a side exit out of the building, he breaks into a run. 

He's running past Reactor Four building when it explodes. The force of the explosion knocks him over several meters. Hot rocks rain down on him. When, after a few moments of holding his face in his arms, he lifts his head and looks up, there is an eerie bluish glow emanating from the top of the building.

Toptunov swallows. It all tastes like metal. 

— _Sasha_.

He knocks his head back on the ground, not even feeling the trickle of blood seeping out of the side of his mouth. He thinks he can see Akimov leaning down, looking at him.

_I was too late, Sasha._

But it's only dust and debris that float above him, backlit by the glow of the fire against the darkness of the night sky. Through the ringing in his ears he can hear the sound of fire engines approaching.

— _Stop_.


	3. Running Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check the updated tags. Definitely the darkest (and wackiest) of the Runnings.

Already past the door, Toptunov remembers that the elevator has been broken for the third day in a row, so he veers to the stairwell instead. Down and down he goes. Right around the first floor landing, he spots a young bloke with a dog. 

_One blood-thirsty looking mongrel. _

He locks eyes with him, just as the man moves his foot forward, right into his running path. Toptunov trips and falls forward, plummeting arms first down the flight of stairs onto the landing halfway to the ground floor. _Fuck!_

He bounces off the wall and collects himself from the floor, hissing in pain. But there's no time. He makes it down to the ground floor, past the rows of mailboxes in lobby and out of his building.

Limping slightly, Toptunov begins his sprint across the grass to Sportyvnaya Street, toward the intersection. He turns the corner around Jubilee home services store, onto Lazarev Street, where he immediately collides with a baby carriage.

Oksana screams, pulling back the baby carriage. Losing his footing, Toptunov lurches down, fingers scraping the sidewalk. He regains his balance as Mikhail and Vasily step up to him, and all he can do is turn around, then feint to the side and slide past them. — Hey! 

— _Watch where you're going, you lunatic!_

Without giving the group another glance, Toptunov runs across the street and continues down Lazarev, eyes trained directly ahead of him.

Near the post office, he turns left and cuts across the main square in front of the Palace of Culture. 

When spring first came, and the snow had melted, he had gathered his courage and asked Svetlana Zinchenko, the young doctor from the hospital to join him on an outing.

They had gone to the Palace, and then traipsed all over Pripyat, having no destination in particular. Toptunov walked her back to her block, wondering out loud if there might be a second such outing.

— Leonid. — She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes slightly, like she was considering an abstract painting.

— Lana. — He hoped it was not too forward to call her _Lana_.

— You mentioned Sasha Akimov thirty-seven times.

— You were counting?

— Good night, Leonid Fedorovich.

From that, he inferred that there would be no second outing.

— Hey mister, need a bike? — Two small children on bikes weave around him, racing him and each other, until one of them loses balance and collides into the other. The parents scream and rush toward them.

Toptunov extricates himself from the commotion, and runs across the lanes of Kurchatov Street, barely checking for traffic. Now he is headed south-east along the wide-laned Lenina Prospekt.

When a car pulls out of a housing complex right in front of him, it's too late to stop, so Toptunov leaps up to run over the hood. The driver hits the brakes, but Toptunov jumps off, hissing as he lands on his injured foot. He doesn't turn back to look, but Dyatlov keeps staring in his direction, unaware that he's let off the brake and the car is now rolling forward —

The sound of scraped metal breaks his reverie, as he realizes that his car has brushed against the rear corner of a bus. 

_Fuck_.

The bus driver steps out to survey the damage.

— Comrade.

— Comrade.

The bus driver surveys the damage. — I think maybe it's best we forget this ever happened.

— Forget what? — They nod at one another.

Meanwhile, Toptunov has reached the very end of Lenina Prospekt. But the bus station is empty. He looks around, as if expecting the bus to come from any direction. But there's no one around.

He rests with his head down between his shoulders, hands propped against his knees, panting heavily. It's three kilometers to the plant, still. He gives one more look back at Lenina Prospekt, and sighs with relief. There is a bus coming, after all.

It speeds right past him.

— Hey! — Toptunov yells out, waving his arms.

Left with no other option than to continue on foot, he turns left and follows the road until he comes up to the warehouse. There, he makes a right-turn. Past the railroad tracks he turns left yet again, and finally the massive building housing Reactors Four and Three comes into view.

At the checkpoint, he fishes out his identification card and hands it to the guard.

— Well, well. If it isn't engineer... Toptunov. — The guard glances up at him. Toptunov glares back.

— Yes, a little anger is good for the heart. — The guard tells him. — The circulation. The skin.

He hands him back the identification card, and lifts the guard rail so that he can pass. 

Toptunov steps through, fully intending to run the rest of the way to the Main Administration Building. But then it hits him.

_Bryukhanov, Fomin... they'll never listen to me._

They will likely not even hear him out. He needs something that will convey the seriousness of the situation. Toptunov turns back to look at the guard at the checkpoint. His eyes fall down to his hips, and the holster. With an expertly delivered blow from the elbow, he knocks the guard out, and snatches his pistol.

  


* * *

  


— Comrade director is in a meeting — Bryukhanov's secretary informs him without looking up.

Before she can protest, Toptunov pushes past her desk and opens the door to Bryukhanov's office.

— I'll _personally_ supervise the test. — Dyatlov is saying as he enters. — And it will be... Toptunov?

Bryukhanov pauses, the lighter centimeters away from his unlit cigarette. — What the hell is this?

— The turbine rundown test. — Toptunov begins without any introductions. — I have it on good authority that it will not succeed. In fact, it will lead to a catastrophic explosion.

— Good... authority? — Bryukhanov echoes.

Fomin jumps in his seat. — We have a saboteur in our midst? 

— Shut up, Fomin. 

Toptunov pales, visibly. _Oh, shit._

— Listen to me, all of you. — He tries to keep his voice steady. — You can't perform the test. It's dangerous. It will — 

— Nonsense. We performed it on the other three —

— Shut _up_, Fomin. Toptunov, where is this _dis_information coming from, hm? Are you involved in any _activity_ meant to disrupt our energy production?

— What, no! I —

He's not getting through to them.

Toptunov reaches for his waistband, and pulls out the pistol, pointing it at Bryukhanov. — Now listen to me! I am _trying_ to save lives. Yours and everyone else's. You cannot let the safety test take place.

Bryukhanov flinches. Fomin's hands fly up to cover his face, as he cowers in his chair.

— Clearly — Dyatlov's soft voice slithers into his ear, causing him to swing his arms and aim the pistol at him. — You didn't think this one through.

Dyatlov's eyes are icy cold and locked with his own. It's like the gun isn't even there. He doesn't consider it a threat, or part of the equation at all.

— Your career is finished, Toptunov. _Finished_.

The humming in Toptunov's ears intensifies as his vision tunnels around Dyatlov. He does not hear Bryukhanov rising from his chair, moving around his desk, or grasping the heavy ashtray made of glass on his way toward him. 

First comes that awful _crack!_ sound as the ashtray collides with Toptunov's skull. Then, piercing pain and something wet and slimy is running down the side of his cheek and neck. As he collapses on the floor, his fingers relax and let go of the pistol. The ash falls on his face, soft, like a veil. Finally, there is _nothingness_.

He comes to when the car jostles on a right turn.

Toptunov lifts his head from where it had been lolling on the headrest. His wrists are bound in handcuffs and there's a guard seated next to him. Toptunov mumbles something that sounds very much like _safety_ as he begins to regain consciousness. The driver glances back at him in the rear view mirror. Momentarily distracted, he fails to notice a pedestrian crossing the street, one Aleksandr Akimov, summoned by the local KGB to give a statement on Toptunov's sudden and inexplicable actions against the state. 

_Thud_. The wheels squeal and the car stops. Toptunov fumbles forward. The guard jumps out from the back seat, and the door doesn't quite close. Toptunov slides over, still very much dazed, his vision only just coagulating.

There, on the asphalt, he spots thick rimmed glasses lying upside down. Familiar. Broken. Must have been knocked off the unlucky pedestrian's face.

Sasha's glasses.

— Sasha! — He yelps, and scrambles out of the car, pushing past the guard attempting to grab ahold of him. He falls to his knees by Sasha's side, cradling his motionless face with his restrained hands.

No, no, _no_.

He pulls his head back and closes his eyes.

— _Stop_.


	4. Running Three

Already past the door, Toptunov remembers that the elevator has been broken for the third day in a row, so he veers to the stairwell instead. Down and down he goes. Right around the first floor landing where he spots a young bloke with a dog. 

Taking one glance at the pair, Toptunov places both hands on the railing and leaps high over the dog. As he does, the dog growls at him. Toptunov makes the turn around the mid-landing, and growls back. 

He makes it down to the ground floor, past the rows of mailboxes in lobby and out of his building, sprinting across the grass to Sportyvnaya Street, toward the intersection. He takes a wide turn around the corner of Jubilee home services store, onto Lazarev Street, running past a group of people with a baby carriage.

Vasily Ignatenko turns to look at him, then back to the group.

— Must be really into fitness, that guy.

But Toptunov is already across the street and continuing down Lazarev. When he reaches the post office, he turns left and cuts across the main square in front of the Palace of Culture. 

Not long after he first arrived in Pripyat, one autumn day he had gone on a walk with his trusty Zenit. He wanted to take some photographs that he could send to family and friends, of his new life in the _atomgrad_. That was the day he ran into Sasha Akimov, whom he'd recently met at the plant. 

Quickly he learned that Sasha was not one who liked his photograph taken. Nevertheless, he developed the one photo in his makeshift darkroom. Part of it blurry, where Akimov had raised his hand in defense, his eyes drawn down, and a curious expression, frozen between a frown and a smile.

Thinking back to the stolen photograph, Toptunov runs past two children who are helping a third learn how to ride a bicycle. Flanking her on both sides, they are ready to support her as she learns how to balance.

At the end of the square he runs across the lanes of Kurchatov Street, barely checking for traffic. Now he is headed south-east along the wide-laned Lenina Prospekt.

When a car pulls out of a housing complex right in front of him, it is too late to stop, Toptunov ends up rolling across the hood. He lifts his eyes from the maroon lacquer and locks eyes with the driver. 

— Toptunov. What the hell are you doing _on the hood of my car_? — Dyatlov demands.__

_ __ _

Toptunov stares at him for a few seconds, out of breath and unable to move. 

_ __ _

— Nothing much — he finally replies, and scrambles off the hood. 

_ __ _

Just as he is about to start running again, a bus passes by. He groans in frustration. When he reaches the bus station at the very end of Lenina Prospekt, the bus is long gone.

_ __ _

He rests with his head down between his shoulders, hands propped against his knees, panting heavily. It's three kilometers to the plant, still. 

_ __ _

Left with no other option than to continue on foot, he turns left and follows the road until he comes up to the warehouse. There, he makes a right-turn. Past the railroad tracks he turns left yet again, and finally the massive building housing Reactors Four and Three comes into view.

_ __ _

At the checkpoint, he fishes out his identification card and hands it to the guard.

_ __ _

— You finally made it, engineer... Toptunov. — The guard glances up at him from the identification card, then pointedly, at the clock in his booth.

_ __ _

_Finally?_

_ __ _

He hands him back the identification card, and lifts the guard rail so that he can pass. Toptunov immediately breaks into a sprint, headed toward the long line of connected buildings housing the reactors.

_ __ _

The road veers slightly left, and heads toward the great red and white ventilation chimney for Reactors Three and Four. Then it turns all the way left, and he runs along the block housing Reactor Two, another combined ventilation chimney, and Reactor One.

_ __ _

Zigzagging left and right, he finally arrives in front of the Main Administration Building. Exhausted and short of breath, he lumbers toward the entrance, and stumbles inside.

_ __ _

— I need to see Bryukhanov — he announces to the secretary.

_ __ _

She looks up, startled by his disheveled appearance.

_ __ _

— _Comrade director_ Bryukhanov has left for the day.

_ __ _

_Shit_.

_ __ _

He rubs his forehead, wiping off sweat. _Now what?_ Should he try confronting Bryukhanov at home? Or Fomin, for that matter? 

_ __ _

He staggers out of the building, not especially thrilled to have to run back to town, but there is no other choice. So he backtracks along the reactor building, and follows the road as it veers right, toward the checkpoint.

_ __ _

The guard waves to him from inside the booth. — Finished with work already, comrade?

_ __ _

He pointedly ignores him and continues to run toward the bus station.

_ __ _

There is a sharp squeal of brakes and a rumble of a motor. A rider on a motorcycle materializes in front of him, blocking is path across the bus bay.

_ __ _

— Toptunov? — The rider lifts up the visor of his helmet. — What are you doing here?

_ __ _

— Perevozchenko?

_ __ _

— Want to buy my motorcycle? An import. Jawa 350. Excellent condition.

_ __ _

— What? I need to find Bryukhanov. He's left for the day. It's quite urgent.

_ __ _

— You would certainly find him faster if you were on a motorcycle — Perevozchenko quips.

_ __ _

— Do you think he's at home?

_ __ _

— It's Friday afternoon. He could be anywhere.

_ __ _

_Anywhere_. Great.

_ __ _

— He could be at his dacha — Perevozchenko supposes.

_ __ _

— He has a dacha? — Toptunov blanches. He hadn't considered that Bryukhanov could be out of the city by now.

_ __ _

— I don't have a clue — Perevozchenko shrugs.

_ __ _

_This Perevozchenko, he is no help at all_, Toptunov concludes miserably. 

_ __ _

— I better get going — Perevozchenko glances around. 

_ _>p?There's a bus approaching the station, signalling its turn from Lenina Prospekt._ _

_ __ _

— Consider it, Toptunov. Motorcycles are very popular... _with the ladies_ — he lowers his voice, conspiratorial-like, then flips his visor down, and revvs up his Jawa.

_ __ _

The bus pulls in, Perevozchenko pulls out. A maroon Dacia comes careening down the road at high speed, from the direction of the plant. There's a _thud_ and a sound of something metal screeching along the pavement. 

_ __ _

Toptunov runs past the bus, and onto the road, where he spots Perevozchenko on the ground, his motorcycle in the roadside ditch, and the maroon Dacia speeding off.

_ __ _

— Perevozchenko! — Toptunov kneels down and unlocks the helmet's visor. — Are you alright?

_ __ _

Perevozchenko glances at his left leg, which seems to have taken the brunt of the impact, as well as the slide off the motorcycle. Then he turns his head toward the bike. 

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— Look, not even damaged — he grabs his arm. — You should buy it, Toptunov. 

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Then his eyes roll to the back of his head.

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When the ambulance arrives, the medics have a difficult time extricating Toptunov's left arm from Perevozchenko's vice-like grip. — I'll come with you — he offers.

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Inside the ambulance, Perevozchenko floats in and out of consciousness. 

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— How much cash — he asks — do you have in your wallet?

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Toptunov maneuvers to open his wallet with his right arm. — Three rubles... and sixty kopeyki — he informs him.

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— I'll consider it... a down payment. — Perevozchenko begins to slur. — For the motorcycle.

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With Perevozchenko reported to be in stable condition, Toptunov leaves the hospital long after dark, the keys to the motorcycle cradled in his hand. He is standing outside, when Zinchenko appears next to him.

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— Leonid.

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— Lana.

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— How's Sasha doing?

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Toptunov's eyes open wide like saucers.

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— Got to go.

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He breaks into a run, despite every muscle in his body protesting this decision. Near the bus station, he retrieves the motorcycle. Perevozchenko was right. It survived the collision mostly unscathed.

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When he steps into Control Room Number Four, there is only one question on his mind.

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— The test?

_ __ _

Akimov turns to him, and whispers. — How do _you_ know about the test?

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Toptunov realizes that this is the first time he's spoken to Sasha since the _phone call_.

_ __ _

— I, uh–

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— It's been cancelled. — Akimov whisper-explains.

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_Cancelled?_

_ __ _

— Comrade Dyatlov has been detained. Something about... failure to render aid to a comrade.

_ __ _

Oh. _Oh._

_ __ _

— We are to shut down the reactor, in preparation for routine maintenance and refueling. — Akimov explains to the rest of the engineers in the control room.

_ __ _

Proskuryakov and Kudryavtsev step closer, eager to witness a reactor shut down. 

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— We're going to follow the reduction protocol.

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Toptunov slides into his chair and toward the familiar sight of his station, relieved. If it was appropriate for him to smile at the power readout, as it keeps falling, he would.

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At the end of their shift, they walk out of the building together.

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— Leonid, where are you headed? The bus is that way.

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Toptunov pauses. An image flashes in his mind, of Sasha's arms holding him tight around his midsection, as they ride along the road to Pripyat, the wind whistling in his ears. He swallows and turns to face him.

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— I bought a motorcycle. From Perevozchenko. 

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At Sasha's surprised look, he waves his hand. — It's a long story. 

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Then adds promptly — Do you want a ride home?

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think?


End file.
